


Wine From The Lilac Tree

by lafillechanceuse



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dalish Elven Culture and Customs, F/F, Fluff, Gals being pals, Humor, Introspection, What could be better than this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 04:07:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8189129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lafillechanceuse/pseuds/lafillechanceuse
Summary: After a stressful job, Skinner and Dalish go off on their own to unwind. Picking flowers turns to a present and an unexpected conversation about their pasts and feelings for each other.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sunspot (unavoidedcrisis)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/unavoidedcrisis/gifts).



It started in Nevarra, because of course it did.

Say what you would about Orlais. At least they had chosen a national pastime other than shaming everyone and everything in sight. They must have permanent headaches, Dalish reasoned, from all the glaring and the set jaws. She remembered the Nevarran clan from her second Arlathvhen, stone faces that spat ironbark and expressed their opinions through the severity of their grimaces. No one dared venture within spitting distance during the breaks. With shems like these, no wonder they had picked up the habit.

Skinner fit in here, she mused. Skinner could shame Divine Justinia herself in her sleep from twenty leagues away. 

Currently, she was sharpening her scowl on the housewife running the butcher’s stall across the street. Not to be outdone, the housewife steadily glowered back. Dalish watched the point her eyes were fixed on.

“Think you’ll turn her bald if you do it long enough?”

She asked conversationally, pulling an apple out of her pack.

“Look at the front of her cap. She’s already there.”

Skinner answered without breaking the housewife’s gaze.

Relishing the crunch of the first fresh fruit she had in two weeks, she thoughtfully chewed and swallowed.

“What’d she do, then?”

Skinner shrugged.

“Do I need a reason?”

Dalish considered it. Nevarrans tended to be suspicious by nature. The villagers had barely spoken to them beyond frightened muttering and one old woman’s particular persistence in pressing an Andrastrian pendant on Stitches, who only felt religious when drunk and singing Andraste’s Mabari, to protect him while they traveled up the mountain to clear the demons out of the castle. Die Fledermäuse, they had called them.

Had was a good word for it.

A firm, polite rebuff of their advances temporarily blindsided the undead desire demon underlings and between their combined might, they and their master, a fabled shapeshifter, scrambled for an escape. Scraping enough proof out of the smear of blood and pile of ashes into Grim’s handkerchief took a team effort. Shame about the castle, really. She had never sneezed so much in her life.

The arm around her waist brought her out of her thoughts. Leaning against her shoulder, Dalish lifted up the apple so Skinner could take a bite. Juice dripping down her chin, Skinner smiled like a knife. The housewife scoffed in disgust, then her eyes widened in shock and the slightest hint of terror that let them know they were about to be joined by the rest of the company. As a parting gift, Skinner left her a menacing grin and Dalish shook her head, clucking. Once out of earshot, they laughed at her perturbed expression.

“See you kept yourselves entertained,” Krem noted as they fell in step with the rest of them.

“She’ll be thinking about that for the next week.”

Skinner said smugly.

“What’d she do?”

Rocky asked.

“She knows what she did,” tutted Dalish, and no one questioned her further on the matter.

Both of them looked to the chief, but he shook his head and motioned them onward. Once they left the city gates, the tension slowly drained out of The Iron Bull’s shoulders. He broke his silence an hour later.

“Well, that was weird as shit.”

Stitches nodded grimly.

“We didn’t get paid?”

Skinner asked, just this side of murderous.

“No, Skinner, we got paid.”

The Iron Bull pushed a hand over his head.

“They tried to argue he’d come back. Said he wasn’t dead enough. I offered to throw the handkerchief in the fire, but they got pissed at having it in their hearth. Apparently, it’ll only stick if they’re scattered in water, so we’ve got to find a lake.”

“Least they let you keep the nightgown,” Stitches pointed out. “Pretty thing. All diaphorous—“

“Diphosphorous,” Rocky corrected him.

“No, diploplias,” Dalish interjected.

“Diaphanous,” said Krem with the weary air of an only child suddenly left to look after a gaggle of younger cousins while the adults talked without any further guidance, “Is the word you’re looking for.”

Stitches pursed his lips, then nodded.

“Yeah, that.”

“It is a pretty nightgown,” said The Iron Bull a touch wistfully.

That settled the matter, more or less. The Chargers continued to walk for another hour until a large lake stretched out ahead of them. Lilac bushes dotted the clearing, then formed a path between the waters.

“Wonder where that goes,” mused Dalish aloud as they broke out the tents.

When they finished, Skinner nudged her with her hip, then jerked her head towards the path before raising her voice.

“Chief!”

“Yeah?”

“When’s dinner?”

“I dunno. Grim, when’s dinner?”

Grunting, Grim held up a dead rabbit in one hand and half an onion in the other.

“A while, then,” said Skinner and he nodded.

“Why’d you need to know?”

The Iron Bull asked.

“We’re going to help,” said Dalish quickly. “Go for a walk, gather some herbs.”

“Can never have too many herbs, ser,” Stitches chimed in, frowning at their stores.

It was a solid argument. Shrugging, The Iron Bull acquiesced.

“All right. Don’t be gone too long. Be best if you’re gathering herbs and not wool.”

He looked terribly smug at that, then his expression turned sour when no one else acknowledged it. Hand in hand, the two elves disappeared into the thicket of blooms before he could get around to scolding them after the others for not appreciating that particular clever turn of phrase. When they found a good spot, the two of them sprawled on the bank to bask in the light of the setting sun.   

The thick, heady scent of the lilac blossoms reminded Skinner of the vhenadahl in early summer. All alienages cultivated theirs, but the one she abandoned one fateful night after killing a noble looking for an outlet for his nastiness particularly prided itself on their vhenadahl being the first to bloom every year without fail. She had played in its branches, climbed higher than any of the other children despite their hahren’s pleas to be reasonable, da’len, surely you have proved yourself enough, think of the fall.

Skinner fell time after time, but on that fateful night when a passing Qunari mercenary offered to help her hide the body and offered her safe passage and a job to boot, she learned that sometimes when you fell, you flew.

She started when a flower covered the bridge of her nose, sneezing violently. The rest of the blossoms piled on her face fell off. Dalish clucked in disappointment, then gathered them up and tossed them into the lake.

“I was wondering when you’d notice.”

They floated on the surface of the water, bobbing gently out to the center.

“Was that some weird elf shit?”

“No. Just having fun.”

Dalish dipped her toes in the water and wiggled them.

“We didn’t get to do this where my clan travelled. Rivers had catfish big as horses that liked to prey on our halla and went hungry more often than not. We spent the winter weaving nets the size of aravels to catch them at the end of the summer and we’d spend the whole fall smoking them for winter storage.”

“How big?”

“Halla big. A whole fish can last you a month if you do it right. What about you?”

“We boiled fish heads together in a pot and ate the meat with salt and breadcrumbs.”

Old reflexes kicking in, she waited for the barb. Instead, Dalish nodded sagely.

“Smart. Less chance of getting eaten that way.”  

Skinner relaxed again. From anyone else, she would have expected scorn, but not from her. Dalish had spent her whole life scavenging for food before they met. She was foolish to even consider it. Besides, even disregarding that, Dalish had a way about her that spoke of something old, something deep, before the Creators, before the Maker, before the Fade. She walked with purpose, could rattle off any lore regarding plants or animals one could care to name, and despite her airy demeanor, provided devastatingly cutting insights when called upon to do so. On the rare handful of occasions where the Chargers witnessed the full extent of her rage, they remembered her roots, her frost twining and crackling around their enemies to shatter them, something ancient and terrible.

Yet here she was, and her only concern was covering her beloved in flowers.

“Hold still,” she demanded, weaving together lilac branches.

Skinner stared at it.

“You’re putting that on my face?”

Dalish huffed.

“I’m anointing you with a garland. It’s symbolic.”

“Symbolic of what?”

Dalish shrugged.

“Not the black mulberries, then.”

That sentiment seemed far too bitter. She shook her head briskly.

“Symbols. I like the way it brings out your eyes.”

Reaching up, Skinner stroked her cheek. Dalish leaned into it, her hand coming up to cover hers and tracing the calloused knuckles.

“What symbol would you make for me?”

“It’s not entirely without tradition.”

Dalish shivered as Skinner’s thumb stroked the side of her neck.

“There’s a hymn about Andruil and Ghila’nain, one you don’t learn until you’re old enough to understand it. It’s written for those of us who…emulate them, if you will.”

“Oh, I will,” said Skinner smugly, uncharacteristically suave. Catching herself before she could be taken aback in front of Dalish and ruin the illusion, she propped herself up and traced a hand up her thigh.

Dalish shivered in response.

“The hymn’s about her ascent to godhood—and a bit more than that besides. The sex is hardly subtle. Plenty of bits about ascension and ecstasy and losing yourself in the overwhelming love of the divine. The writer particularly liked to use flowers and vines to— _ah_ —illustrate their point.”

“And the lilacs?”

Skinner murmured against her ear.

“At the end of the hymn, when they’re in bed, away from it all, Andruil is the first to wake from sleep. She sees her bride lying beside her and plucks the branches from her bedposts, weaving her a crown on the spot. When Ghila’nain wakes up, she places it on her head to officially recognize her as one of the Creators and kisses her to formally declare the marriage.”

Skinner sat up fully then, letting her hand go down to rest on her knee, but not taking it away.

“Is that what this is?”

Dalish hesitated.

“Well—there are a lot of different versions of it and interpretations. You know what they say—two clans, three Keepers.”

Skinner arched a brow.

“So, this isn’t a marriage proposal?”

Dalish shook her head.

“But it’s not just for close friends. I love you, ma vhenan and I want you to know you’re loved.”

Her hands turned and twisted in her lap until Skinner kissed her. Dalish leaned into it, then rested her head on her shoulder. Tenderly, Skinner carded her fingers through the thick blonde strands, then concentrated.

“Emma lath.”

Her accent took up most of it, the words thick on her tongue like burrs.

“Ar lath ma.”

Dalish could feel her frowning as she said it, trying to shake it off, and tried not to giggle.

Skinner kissed her again.

“Ma vhenan.”

Dalish giggled.

“The faces you’re making when you say them—“

Skinner huffed indignantly and turned away, sulking. Dalish swooped in to pepper her face with kisses.

“You’re doing very well and if you practice enough, I’ll swoon into your arms.”

Dalish batted her eyelashes at her.

“I’m very good at that.”

Leaning forward, Skinner snatched two handfuls of blood lotus and spindleweed from the bank. Wrapping them in her handkerchief, she put the bundle down and turned to Dalish with a knife-edged grin and a sultriness that would make a desire demon green with envy.

“We’ve finished our task. Could you do that now?”

They returned to camp with grass stains on their knees and armor slightly out of place just as Grim started serving plates. With a knowing look, The Iron Bull nodded at them, then returned to the letter he was writing. Stitches frowned at their paltry handfuls of herbs, but said nothing. They ate Grim’s rabbit stew in silence with water, then, when the fire banked low, passed a cask of Chasind sack mead between them. Solemnly, Krem took the handkerchief of ashes to the edge of the lake, standing on the bank with Skinner beside him. He took a deep breath. When Rocky started in on the funeral dirge with the blowing horn for retreats he had stolen from the Bull’s pack, he almost dropped the handkerchief.

“He said he was a count before we killed him,” Rocky insisted over the sound of their laugher, dodging the Bull’s large hand attempting to wrest control of it in vain. “We should give him full military honors.”

“You’ve got steadier hands,” Krem wheezed at Skinner and gave her the handkerchief so he could go collapse on the ground next to Stitches, who was watching Rocky dangle determinedly from the horn.

“Play the damn horn and get this over with,” The Iron Bull grumbled reluctantly, setting him back down on the ground. Dusting himself off, Rocky hushed them and took a deep breath, putting the horn to his lips.

“Oh, come on, you guys,” The Iron Bull said exasperatedly after the fart noise and the laughter died out. “Show some respect for the dead, and finish this before the sun comes up, all right? This one’s it.”

Solemnly, Skinner held the handkerchief out over the lake. Beside her, Dalish leaned forward, her hands glowing blue. Rocky played the dirge in earnest as she blew over her hands, a cold north wind swooping up the ashes and dancing round the length of the lake. When the last one left the cloth, the blue glow faded.

“Beautiful,” Skinner said, eyes glowing in the darkness.

“As are you,” Dalish cooed back at her, and they raised their middle fingers high in the direction of the wolf whistles they received.

“All right, kids,” said The Iron Bull, snatching the horn back from Rocky and returning it to his pack. Digging around, he pulled out the nightgown with a flourish and refastened the straps. “Bed time.”

“We’ll take watch,” said Stitches, glancing over at Grim, who grunted agreement.

“Good night, all,” Dalish chirped at them, tugging Skinner by the hand to their shared tent. A chorus of good nights echoed back at them when they ducked inside, stripping down and settling into their shared bedroll.

“Dalish?”

Skinner mumbled.

“Mm?”

She grunted sleepily.

“Get your face out of my armpit.”

“Only if you get your knee out of my crotch.”

They rearranged themselves until they were at something approaching comfortable and tired enough to settle. Eyes closed, Dalish hummed a lullaby into her collarbone as Skinner stared at the shadow of the tree on the tent wall cast by the fire. It looked high enough, she mused, and the shape of the leaves was right. As a child, the vhenadahl towered over her like a giant, an inescapable fate that bound her to the alienage and all it entailed.

She would tell Dalish someday, she decided, about it all. She would understand the climbing, the running, and the falling. She would understand how long it took to find her, and with her, to fly.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there! 
> 
> It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm almost certain you're a friend of a friend; if you like New Mutants, I've definitely seen you around before. Sorry the formatting for this looks a little different; the mods didn't want to reassign you to me and have your prompts get lost in the shuffle by accident.
> 
> A little note about this story: I actually started writing it out of spite ages ago. Someone made a kink meme post involving the Chargers and complained about Skinner being a lesbian in most stories, begging the poster to please, for the love of God, make her bi if you must, but don't make her a lesbian again. Like most of the fandom, and as a bi person, I was overwhelmed with anger and had the instinctive gut reaction of WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY IT IS FOR SKINNER TO BE A LESBIAN WITH HER GIRLFRIEND DALISH WHO IS ALSO A LESBIAN AREN'T THEY JUST THE BIGGEST LESBIANS THEDAS HAS EVER SEEN. Alas, I had a lot going on in my life at that point in time, so after about 600 words, I left it to collect dust in my documents folder. 
> 
> Then, after completing the monster that was my main assignment and resting for a couple days, I got bored and dusted it off to have something to do after work. I'm so glad I got to finish it for you; I had a lot of fun writing this and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I can't wait to see if you can guess who the villain was. Thank you again for letting me be your creative partner this exchange and I hope this brightens your day a little more. Trust me, it was worth the wait.


End file.
